Reasons for detente
USSR
Europe
Willy Brandt
ECONOMY: The USSR needed relaxation of tensions in order to take the pressure over its economy and improve the standard of living for soviet citizens
Willy Brandt was the chancellor of West Germany. He took the initiative to improve relations between the two Germanys. It was based on greater dialogue and reduction of tension which became known as "Ostpolitik". This gave rise to Europe's pressure for a period of relaxation.
USA
Events of 1968 in Europe
Nixon and Kissinger's 'realpolitik'.
Both of those events showed political instability in Western and Eastern Europe:
• Invasion of Czechoslovakia
• Student riots and strikes in France
US economy
Soviet desire to confirms borders
Vietnam War
During the 1970s there were movements which were against war and conflict generally and used the Vietnam war as a general font to protest against the American approach to communism and how to enclose it
Soviet also aimed to improve relations in Europe. They wanted to win Western acceptance of the division of Germany and formalise the existing territorial situation in Eastern Europe.
TECHNOLOGIES: The USSR had hoped to import new technologies from the west.
The US's economy was receding in power due to a massive inflation, the largest the country ever had to deal with
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What was achieved?
The basic treaty (1972): This is a treaty concerning the basis of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic republic. By its terms, each side recognized and agreed to respect the other's authority and independence.
The Moscow Treaty:
The Final Quadripartite Protocol (1972)
Helsinski Agreement: During the Moscow Summit in 1972, Nixon agreed to participate in the European Security Conference which was attended by 33 countries in 1973.
An agreement was signed in August 1970 between the Soviet Union, Poland, and the Federal Republic of Germany. It recognised the border between East Germany and West Germany and also formally accepted the post-World War Two border in the East with Poland.
SALT
The two SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties) were signed by the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1972 and 1979.
They were were intended to restrain the arms race in strategic (long-range or intercontinental) ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons.
Suggested by U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, strategic arms limitation talks were agreed on by the two superpowers in the summer of 1968, and full-scale negotiations began in November 1969.
SALT 1
SALT 2
The final agreement called "The Final Act" was signed on 1 August 1975. It included three of the so-called baskets.
Basket 1: The border between East and West Germany was recognized by both sides of the Cold War divide.
Basket 2: Collaboration in economic, scientific, and cultural fields.
Basket 3: All of the signatories agreed to respect human rights.
Within SALT 1, the most important agreements made were the Treaty on Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Systems and the Interim Agreement and Protocol on Limitation of Strategic Offensive Weapons. Presidents Nixon and Brezhnev signed them on May 26, 1972, at a summit meeting in Moscow.
The SALT II negotiations suffered from a basic problem in these negotiations, since there was the asymmetry between the strategic forces of the two countries, the U.S.S.R. having concentrated on missiles with large warheads while the United States had developed smaller missiles of greater accuracy. Questions also arose as to new technologies under development, matters of definition, and methods of verification.
The US hoped that basket 3 would result in the formation of organizations that were to monitor Soviet action against the principles set out in the Helsinki Agreement.
This was a major victory for Willy Brandt as it agreed to the maintenance if the 'status quo' in Berlin, confirming that the West had a legal basis for its access routes to the city.
However, Brezhnev considered the aspects of basekt 1 and 2 important. Therefore, he still signed the agreement.
Nixon needed to find a way of ending the Vietnam War and he also wanted the US to follow a more realistic foreign policy, which would take account of the changing international situation.
As finally negotiated, the SALT II treaty set limits on the number of strategic launchers with the objective
of deferring the time when both sides’ land-based ICBM systems would become vulnerable to attack from such missiles.